Spies in Huntsville? Believe it. FBI calls the city a 'major target' for espionage

View full sizeRedstone Arsenal Security Officer Mack Wood moves part of a barrier system at gate 1 on Martin Road in this file photo from 2008.The Huntsville Times

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama - The Cold War may be over, but spying to learn valuable corporate and national secrets didn't end with it. "Far from it," says a spokesman for the FBI field office charged with protecting critical national assets and secrets generated by Huntsville's military and aerospace centers.

"Huntsville is a major target for foreign nationals (spies) working to obtain classified information," FBI spokesman Paul Daymond said. Daymond was asked about security and the agency's anti-spy operations in Alabama after U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Virginia, held a press conference and alerted authorities in early March to what he called suspicious access to potential secrets at two NASA centers in other parts of the country.

On that subject, NASA Headquarters is like all federal agencies and typically speaks about security in Huntsville and its other centers only in generalities. "NASA takes any allegation of a security violation very seriously, and follows long-established procedures to investigate these allegations quickly and thoroughly," spokesman David Weaver said in response to press inquiries about Wolf's statements. "These investigations are handled by our security and counterintelligence professionals in cooperation with the NASA Inspector General and other law enforcement officials, as appropriate."

NASA would not release the name of the private contractor suspected by Wolf of involvement in one of the cases he cited, but because Wolf had spoken publicly, the agency said it would confirm the contractor no longer works at that center.

Similarly, the FBI won't confirm or deny catching spies in Huntsville at either NASA or Army installations on Redstone Arsenal. Daymond will say the agency has "a dedicated agent in Huntsville whose job is to reach out constantly to classified defense contractors and fellow government agencies" about the threat of spies. That agent is Jeff Hawkins, and he is available at telephone number (256) 539-1711 to schedule security briefings for companies and their employees. Ten tips from the FBI for protecting your business from spies are at the bottom of this story.

Daymond said the FBI recently teamed up with the National Classification Management Society, Defense Security Service and Lockheed Martin Space Systems to host a security conference in the city. To illustrate the size of the potential risk just in Huntsville, 350 people attended from more than 177 classified defense contractors and government entities.

"Reaching out" to contractors and federal agencies means making them aware of what information spies are looking for, Daymond said, and the techniques, threats and tactics used to get that information.

Working in the FBI's behalf is the fact that the spy threat is widely understood in Huntsville, even by people who don't work on the Army base or at one of the government contractors in Cummings Research Park. Federal agents routinely ask friends, former employers and co-workers detailed questions about people they know who have applied for the top federal security clearances needed to work in many offices. Identifying window stickers are being removed from the personal vehicles belonging to the Arsenal's more than 35,000 employees, in part to save money, but that will also make spotting federal workers more difficult for spies seeking to make contact with them at public venues such as schools, ball fields and even churches. Government and contractor employees are trained to be cautious about contact initiated by strangers.

In a related step, employees of the Army and NASA are not to wear their badges off the base or be photographed with the badges visible. Detailed images of badges could lead to copies made in an attempt to gain base access, although the main Arsenal gates are only the first security hurdle to anyone wanting government or contractor secrets. Most secure areas on the Huntsville base used by either the Army or NASA are also protected by extra layers of badge-access-only fences and doors. Visits to some defense-related offices require cellphones - with their accompanying cameras - to be left in lockers in the lobby.

View full sizeThe FBI itself has institutional reasons to worry about security in Huntsville. These are architect's renderings of the agency's new Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center, which is moving to Redstone Arsenal from Quantico, Va. (File image)

On the base and at contractor offices, visitors are routinely identified, badged and escorted. They are logged in and out and their appointments confirmed before they leave the front desk. At a recent commercial space conference at government contractor Dynetics Inc., moderators regularly reminded attendees that foreign nationals were present and care should be taken not to violate federal laws against sharing sensitive technology.

The FBI is the lead federal agency charged with protecting national secrets, according to Daymond, and it shares threat information with companies and the public on a website devoted to its "business alliance initiative." Among the topics it is prepared to discuss in company presentations, Daymond said, are cyber security, intellectual property protection, export controls and publication restrictions and keeping employees from being recruited as spies. That last threat is called the "inside threat" and the response to it, like all the others, is something Daymond says the FBI "constantly assesses" in Huntsville to assure it is ready to respond.